“The hell do you mean?” Cabell demanded.
“I mean,” Hart replied, ignoring theshut uplook Raj was giving him. “That Mosby here has no idea where the body is, because running the car off the road wasn’t his idea, now, was it, Mosby?”
Mosby’s nervousness was starting to look worried.
“What are you getting at, Hart?” Raj demanded, and there was a definite note of warning in his tone. This had not been the plan.
“Well, see, I’ve got a theory,” Hart replied, looking very much like he was enjoying himself. “And that theory is that Mosby here isn’t responsible for jack shit.”
Cabell and Mosby were both gaping at him. I tried to look suitably concerned, as I would have been if I hadn’t known what Hart was talking about. Not that anyone was paying any attention to me.
“Not to say that he didn’t drive Elliot Crane off the highway, because you did, didn’t you, Mosby?” Hart leveled his lavender stare at Mosby, who shot a panicked look over at his boss, then at Raj, then back to Hart, although he didn’t answer. “Probably smart of you not to confirm that out loud,” Hart remarked. “But hear me out. Mosby here drove the car off the road, then set it on fire—what did you use, Mosby? Molotov? Matches? Flamethrower?”
The idea that he’d been carrying around a flame thrower was completely ridiculous, and we all knew it.
Mosby opened his mouth, realized how utterly stupid it would be to say anything, and then shut it again.
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” Hart assured him. “After all, Mays here has arson investigation training.”
Both Mosby and Cabell turned to stare at me.
“Is there anything youdon’tinvestigate?” Cabell blurted.
I blinked. “I don’t investigate anything,” I replied calmly. “I gather and interpret evidence, including for arson investigations.”
“And car crashes.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?” Cabell asked grumpily.
“Anything I get called to,” I replied, trying not to be a complete asshole.
Hart had no such reservations. “Including homicide, domestic violence, robbery, kidnapping, animal cruelty, drowning, drug paraphernalia…”
“So anything,” Cabell grumbled, but the glance he shot my way had grudging respect.
“I don’t do cyber or forensic accounting,” I replied. “I’m a biochemist.”
Cabell studied me. “Assuming it weren’t wildly inappropriate, if I let you look over the vehicle, you’d be able to tell me how the fire started?”
I nodded. “I would.”
Cabell turned his gaze on Mosby again, and it was both angry and disdainful. “Give me one reason other than the obvious one why I shouldn’t,” he demanded.
Mosby was an almost alarming shade of grey under his sunburn. And he didn’t answer.
“For shit’s sake, Mosby. What happened out there?”
Mosby shut his mouth, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
And then I realized that it wasn’t a muscle—or, rather, it wasn’ttwitching,it wasshifting.
“Shift!” Raj got it out a second before I could.
Hart grabbed Cabell and shoved him against the wall at the same second, pushing the Deputy Sheriff behind him and placing his body between Cabell and a very angry wolf.
Adrenaline surged, but I understood that shifting would probably not significantly improve my survival odds—wolf or man, my left leg was useless. And the pain of shifting would render the rest of me just as useless.